Over 350 practitioners and scholars from more than 40 countries gathered in Atlanta to explore how the world can make progress toward achieving adequate standards of health as a fundamental right of all people.More than 50 panel presentations and a dozen workshops took place over the course of the three day conference.

President Carter, a Nobel Peace Laureate and revered human rights supporter, provided opening remarks. “It’s a basic human right to have a chance for good health care, decent health care. There is no reason for a child to die of diarrhea, of malaria, of measles.” He advocated unwavering dedication to the cause. “All of us need to defend these rights, just as much as we would defend the rightto freedom of speech. Health ought to be just as high a priority.”

Over the course of three days, several key themes emerged from the thought-provoking proceedings:

Moving the health and human rights dialogue from primarily rhetorical to principally operational;

“Many people recognize the right to a free trial, or to freedom of speech, as fundamental human rights, but the right to health does not yet have the same currency as those classic civil and political rights.”- Paul Hunt, U.N. Special Rapporteur on the Right to Health